Last week, a suggestion to charge riders a flat fare no matter where in the Metro system they travel surfaced, we ran a post saying that's not a good idea. One alternative that came up was using a zone system, which would charge based on how many times a passenger traveled into a new region in the system. But Metro shouldn't do that, either.

As we first wrote in 2011, zones wouldn't simplify things much, and the tradeoffs for Metro and for riders would be steep. We created this hypothetical zone map for that initial post, and while the prices would likely be about 15% higher today to match with Metro's current revenue needs (and the Silver line would be part of the picture), the point still stands.

How it works

Under this system, you would pay based on how many zones you traverse. A trip in just one zone would cost a base fare; each additional zone would cost more.

Fares are based on the number of zones you pass through. You only pay for each zone once. So a trip from East Falls Church (zone 3) to New York Ave (zone 2) through the core would be a 3-zone trip. Zone 2 is counted only once for that trip.

Some stations are on the zone boundary, however. These stations can be counted in either zone, whichever is cheaper for the rider. So a trip from Court House (zone 2) to Rosslyn (zone 1/2) would be a 1-zone trip (all in zone 2).

Zones Traveled

Peak Fare

Off-Peak Fare

1

$2.00

$1.50

2

$2.75

$1.50

3

$3.50

$1.75

4

$4.25

$2.15

5

$5.00

$2.50

Any serious proposal needs to be revenue-neutral or revenue-positive to be practical. We drew the zones so that if ridership stayed roughly the same, Metro would not lose any fare revenue over the current system. Different fare values or zone boundaries could produce a different result.

We’ve eliminated the “peak of the peak” fare. Fares would go back to being either “regular” (peak) or “reduced” (off-peak). But we’ve set the zone fares so that Metro would earn the same the overall revenue as they do today.

Advantages

A key advantage is that tourists and others unfamiliar with the fare system would be able to buy tickets and passes more easily.

The complicated fare table on all vending machines could be replaced by a zone map and a chart showing the rates to travel in each zone. Passes also become simple. You can buy a one-zone pass for a certain price, a two-zone pass for more, and so on.

Converting to a zone system might simplify transfers between rail and bus. Metro could treat a bus trip as just an additional zone, making the system a little more integrated in terms of fare system. In this case, a bus trip and a one-zone rail trip would be $2.75, and transferring from rail to bus would be an additional $0.75 instead of an extra $1.

For some trips, the fare is a great deal cheaper. For example, trips from the far edge of a zone, through the central core, and out to the far edge of a zone are much cheaper.

One such case is from Benning Road to Ballston, a trip that’s currently $4.05. Here, it would be only $2.75, a 30% drop, and the same price as a much shorter trip from Woodley Park to downtown.

Disadvantages

For other trips, the fare increases significantly. A good example of this would be the relatively short trip from West Falls Church to Ballston (note: when we wrote this post and the Silver Line hadn't come along yet, West Falls Church was the the terminal for many Fairfax Connector buses). A trip that would be $2.45 to Ballston becomes $3.50 under the zone system, and even a trip to Rosslyn currently at $3.05 becomes $3.50.

Customers living near these borders would object to any decision to put a zone boundary between them and downtown, and some of these customers facing large increases would abandon riding Metro. Remember that the analysis assumed the same mix of trips in the system as before, which becomes an unlikely assumption once large fare increases come into play.

The fact is, it would be impossible to draw a zone map that allows for a relatively low base fare around $2.00, and a high max fare of $5.00, without either having very expensive zone boundaries or too many zone boundaries. Expensive boundaries raise equity concerns, where a short geographic distance between riders at two adjacent stations turns into a big fare difference.

Large numbers of zone boundary, on the other hand, just mimic the current slow, steady gradient of fares that our current system uses. The former seems unfair, and would create groups of riders that lose out and would know it. The latter would be nearly as complicated as our current system.

Are there ways for Metro to simplify its fares without creating zones? Yes, and an upcoming post will explore some of these alternatives.

WMATA’s SelectPass, new this year, is a good deal for almost anyone who rides Metro daily. It’s been a pilot program, but soon will likely be permanent.

For some of these folks, riding Metro may have gotten a lot cheaper when SelectPass came around. Now, it’s going to stay that way. Photo by Aimee Custis Photography on Flickr.

The pass lets you select a fare level (say, $3.25), pay one fixed price for the month, and then get unlimited rides that cost that amount or less. For more expensive rides, you only pay the amount beyond your set level. Our handy calculator helps you figure out what level is the best deal for you.

According to a presentation from WMATA, Metro now sells 3,700 SelectPasses a month, compared to just 400-1,000 a month for the long-standing unlimited rail pass which did not offer various price levels.

98% of pass users rate the pass at least a 7 out of 10. Low-income riders are even more likely to use the pass, representing 18% of pass users but just 12.8% of overall Metro riders. And WMATA estimates that the pass has slightly increased revenue while increasing ridership even more — just the point of a pass like this.

Michael Perkins has been pushing the idea for this pass since 2009 after getting the idea from Seattle’s ORCA; the transit in that area, as with WMATA, has a variety of fare levels that makes the simple one-price-fits all pass not work.

You can currently get the pass at a fare level of any 25¢ increment from $2.25 to $4.00, plus the $5.90 max fare. Metro plans to add fare levels from $4.00 to $5.75 as well if the (quite old) faregate computers can handle it.

Beyond this, there are a few ways Metro could work to further improve this pass:

Make it easier to get with employer benefits

Many riders get transit through their employers, either where the employer pays for some transit fare for free, or as a pre-tax deducation from the employee’s paycheck. Unfortunately, it can be a pain to get a Metro SelectPass this way if the employer or payroll personnel are not helpful or knowledgeable.

Employers set up benefits through a special (not very user-friendly) WMATA website. To get a pass, the benefits administrator has to specially designate the money for a pass rather than to go on your SmarTrip card as cash.

Many employers don’t know how to do this. Other commenters have said that some employers use third party companies to process these benefits, and not all of those companies support the pass yet.

One GGWash contributor, who asked not to be named, writes, “I made a request with my employer when the pass first came out. I followed up a few months after that. I still haven’t heard anything.”

Metro either needs to work on making it possible to get the pass even with a non-savvy payroll department, or it should make the payroll process easier so employees can help their employers set up the pass correctly.

Allow riding rail or bus without extra cost

Right now, you can add on a bus pass to your Metro Select Pass for $45 more per month, which is like buying a month’s worth of bus rides for just over $1 each. It’s a good deal if your normal commute includes a bus ride, but it’s not a good deal if some of your trips are on rail only and some of your trips are on bus only.

We want to encourage people to use the best transit mode for their needs. If the train isn’t working well, people could switch to the bus; let them. Plus, for people who commute daily by rail, it’s in Metro’s best interest to let them take some midday bus trips for free when the buses aren’t full.

Therefore, it would be better if the Metro Select Pass worked for either mode of transit, rail or bus, as long as it’s less than your selected pass value.

Encourage more bulk purchases

Right now, if you’re a student at American University, you (or, more likely, your parents) pay a $260 per semester mandatory fee, and you and all other students get an unlimited transit pass. This encourages more students to ride transit, while Metro can charge only $260 a semester because most students don’t ride every day.

Beyond adding more universities, Metro could explore building a program to create such passes for other groups, including condo or apartment buildings, employers, and others. When passes are purchased in bulk, the price per pass can be reduced, and everyone is encouraged to use transit.

To get approval for new buildings in many jurisdictions, developers have to prepare Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plans, where they identify strategies to help residents or workers commute by more efficient means than driving. This often includes Bikeshare memberships, car-sharing memberships, TransitScreens in lobbies, and more. Passes could be a great amenity as well.

Congrats to Metro on building a successful new pass program! We look forward to seeing where this goes in the future.

WMATA recently announced that it’s looking to have a private concessionaire take over operations and maintenance of all of its parking facilities, including garages and parking meters on its property. In exchange for a big up-front payment equal to 50 years of parking fees, the concessionaire would have to operate and maintain almost 60,000 parking spaces. It’d also get to collect all the parking fees.

Right now, Metro runs its parking lots. WMATA is looking for a company to take over, though. Photo by Dan Reed on Flickr.

For the base proposal, WMATA allows up to a 3% increase in parking rates every year, and expects the estimated payout to be based on similar hours of operation. However, as an alternate proposal, each potential operator can propose changes to rates and hours of operation, which would be subject to board approval.

This idea looks disturbingly similar to a disastrous proposal which locked the city of Chicago into giving away most of the value of their on-street parking for 75 years. In exchange for $1.2 billion up-front, mostly used to close budget gaps and now long gone, Chicago no longer has any control of how on-street parking is priced, and has to pay the concessionaire when people use the streets for festivals, for disabled placard use, and for allowing construction of parking garages.

Why WMATA might want this deal

The benefits to WMATA are fairly obvious: they get out of the business of operating parking garages and lots, similar to how they have contracted out paratransit service. WMATA gets a big up-front payment of what I’d estimate to be about 1 billion dollars depending on the discount rate, the cost of operating and maintaining the parking spaces, and how much profit the private concessionaire prices into its bid.

However, WMATA and the funding jurisdictions would lose almost $50 million in current parking revenues per year, which is approximately half of the annual estimated budget shortfall WMATA has had at the beginning of the typical budget season for the past 12 years. So in addition to the usual $100 million in budget savings, fare increases, and juridictional subsidy increases to close the typical budget gap, WMATA would have to find an additional $50 million a year to make up for the loss in parking revenue.

The deal could limit Metro’s freedom to boost ridership or redevelop stations

But that’s not all. Since WMATA is requesting potential concessionaires to be creative with their bids, they could potentially increase the amount of the up-front payment by offering to charge for parking during nights and weekends.

Currently, WMATA offers parking for free evenings during the week, and all weekend. This helps improve WMATA’s bottom line, because the parking is not scarce, and the people parking typically ride Metrorail and pay substantial off-peak fares (increased over the past decade from about 50% of peak fares to about 75% of peak fares under the guidance of former general manager Richard Sarles).

A savvy concessionaire could offer WMATA a much larger payout by charging for evening and weekend parking. But by discouraging weekend/evening riders, it could be taking revenue away from Metrorail — revenue that WMATA may have been counting on, but which wasn’t on the parking concessionaire’s balance sheet. Without a solid analysis of how much fare revenue could be lost, WMATA risks further damaging the annual budget in exchange for a one-time payout.

Parking here during nights and weekends is currently free, which encourages more people to ride Metro. But a private company could change that. Photo by Elvert Barnes on Flickr.

It’s even worse if WMATA decides in the future that parking isn’t the best use of some land near a station. If office, residential, or retail would be better around a station, or if Metro needs some of the metered spaces for buses or another use, WMATA would either have to pay the concessionaire a large penalty or, depending how the contract is structured, be unable to make the change at all.

Even if a redevelopment replaces parking, would the concessionaire be able to veto designs it didn’t like? Would WMATA have to pay it back for all of the revenue while the garage is being rebuilt, and what would the cost be? WMATA’s request for proposals doesn’t specify, but if a final contract is anything like Chicago’s, this deal could significantly hamstring Metro’s choices in the future.

Do we trust Metro to negotiate well?

All of this aside, for this plan to succeed, we would have to trust WMATA to correctly evaluate the future value of their parking assets so as not to get taken advantage of financially. According to an independent inspector general report, Chicago’s deal could have been worth almost $900 milllion more than the city actually received. In response to a press inquiry, WMATA only stated that “outside resources” would be used to help evaluate bids.

We also have to trust that WMATA will appropriately spend the money it gets up front in a way that is worth giving up all the future revenue from parking we currently count on to pay WMATA’s bills. Without parking revenue to help increase the cost recovery ratio of the system, it is possible that state and local governments will put pressure on fares to make sure more of the operating costs are being covered. Finally, WMATA risks losing the ability to control prices or usage of the parking lots without financial penalties.

This looks like an extremely risky potential deal. WMATA should proceed with caution.

But Metro doesn’t arrive at those numbers in a way that makes sense for passengers, and its practices can lead to counterproductive moves like intentionally delaying trains to cook the books.

Metro counts a train as “on time” if it arrives somewhere close to within the scheduled headway, which is the block of time that passes between trains. During rush periods, the headway plus or minus two minutes counts, and during off-peak periods, it’s one-and-a-half headways.

That means that when a lead train starts to slow down, Metro can slow down the trains behind it and still count them as being on time. There is no measurement that tracks how fast a train moves through the system. Besides how often trains break down, the only thing reflected in Metro’s public data is the spacing between trains.

Also, only the trains that actually stop at a station are included in Metro’s on-time performance data. Metro’s reporting doesn’t include trains that go out of service or skip stations.

There are more honest ways to report Metrorail performance

Metro needs a performance standard that reflects what’s best for customers.

One way to achieve that would be to divide the amount of times a train stopped at a given station by the number of times Metro said one would stop there. This number would show all the service Metro hadn’t delivered. If Metro said 20 trains would stop at a station during rush hour and only 15 did, that’s a problem we should know about.

Another idea would be to use Smartrip data to track how many people got to their destination within a reasonable time. Metro publishes typical travel times for each possible trip. Going from Ballston to Eastern Market, for example, should take about 26 minutes.

After factoring in a reasonable walking time to and from faregates, along with time for transferring trains if necessary, Metro could report the percentage of customers who got between stations in the time Metro said it would take. This would emphasize the delays that happen when customers can’t get on a train, have to offload, or are on trains that travel slowly.

Metro needs to improve its customer reputation. Honest performance metrics, even if they aren’t particularly flattering, would be a good place to start.

In May, DDOT will launch its most robust performance parking experiment to date. The program, called ParkDC, will significantly change how people park in Gallery Place: the cost to park a car on some of downtown’s most in-demand blocks will rise or drop according to demand.

Photo by Payton Chung on Flickr.

ParkDC’s boundaries will stretch from 11th to 3rd and from E to H Streets Northwest.

Under the performance parking program, DDOT will use cameras and sensors to measure when parking spaces in the designated area are occupied and when they’re empty.

Each quarter, the agency will measure that data against a target occupancy rate of 80-90% (or about one empty spot per block) and adjust how much it costs to park in a given spot accordingly. It’s possible that prices will change more frequently after the first few quarters, and DDOT will assess ParkDC’s overall impact sometime before the end of 2016.

A map of where ParkDC will go into effect. Image from DDOT.

Charging market rate for parking will make sure there are enough empty spots for people who need them while also eliminating an oversupply. That, in turn, will cut down on the congestion that comes from people driving around looking for somewhere to park.

ParkDC is based in part on the success of SFpark, which was introduced to several busy areas in central San Francisco in 2011. An evaluation of SFpark showed that the program made streets better for everyone, with 30% fewer miles driven, 23% fewer parking tickets, 22% less double parking, and 43% less time wasted looking for parking. The average price for parking even fell by 4%. Compared to control areas, buses ran faster and retail sales grew more.

The local business improvement district supports ParkDC: in its press release, businesses touted the project’s ability to make parking “easier to locate” and cut down on double parking and drivers circling for spaces.

ParkDC will be DDOT’s best parking effort to date

DDOT has tried pilots on Capitol Hill, H Street, and Columbia Heights. They were less successful than supporters hoped because DDOT did not have a cost-effective way to measure occupancy. It also didn’t put forth a schedule for updating the meter rates, nor a timeframe for evaluating effectiveness.

For each of these pilot areas, DDOT only reported occupancy data publicly twice, and it hasn’tchanged prices in some places even when the data show they’re either too crowded or empty.

ParkDC’s real-time cameras and occupancy sensors, along with a pre-announced schedule, make the program smarter and more responsive.

According to Soumya Dey, DDOT’s director of research and technology transfer, ParkDC will use a number of methods to gather occupancy data. A traditional “hockey puck,” transaction data from the meters, historical data, cameras, and law enforcement data are all among the ways DDOT will know how many people park, and when, on each block. Dey said the hope is to use fewer embedded sensors, and to evaluate which method is most cost-effective.

Dey said that once the program is up and running, the public will be able to view spot occupancy in real time on DDOT’s website or its app.

WMATA staff presented to a plan to raise bus and rail fares to the agency’s board yesterday. For riders taking both bus and rail, the proposed increase will hit them doubly hard.

The proposed budget increases rail fares by about 3% (the rush hour base fare increases from $2.10 to $2.15) and by 15¢ on bus (from $1.60 to $1.75 for SmarTrip, which will now be the same as the cash fare).

The 50¢ transfer discount will remain the same, as it has for many years. As the rail and bus fares increase, the transfer discount is becoming a smaller part of the fare system.

The transfer started out as a paper ticket you got at a Metrorail station and showed to your bus driver to get a 90¢ discount on the bus fare. Unlike transfers from one bus to another, which allowed a free ride, the rail-to-bus transfer discount was not enough to cover the whole bus fare.

Once WMATA moved bus transfers to SmarTrip, it removed the transfer machines from stations, and you got the transfer discount automatically. The 90¢ discount from rail to bus became a 50¢ discount in both directions.

Since then, bus and rail fares have continued to increase, but the transfer discount has stayed the same. This is unlike other transit agencies, who for the most part either give a free transfer between vehicles, or set a transfer fee (the cost to ride rail after bus or bus after rail) rather than a discount off the base fare for both.

Systems with a transfer fee is periodically review and increase that fee as necessary, because the agency gets more money when this happens. For WMATA, however, it is financially beneficial to overlook increasing the transfer discount, even as both rail and bus fares have increased.

The transfer fee is an important part of the Metro fare system, which takes into account the high cost of riding both rail and bus. It encourages people to take the bus to Metro, rather than drive, congest the roads, and use up a parking space. It’s an acknowledgement that we can’t build the rail system everywhere, but we can build a transit system using multiple modes that can reach a lot more people at a reasonable cost.

WMATA should at the very least establish a policy that when the base rail and base bus fares both rise, the transfer discount should rise by the same amount. This will ensure the customer only sees one fare increase rather than both fare increases at the same time, and would help promote using rail and bus as an integrated system.

]]>Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:02:00 +0000Michael Perkins (Contributor)Live chat with Chris Zimmermanhttps://ggwash.org/view/33486/live-chat-with-chris-zimmerman
https://ggwash.org/view/33486/live-chat-with-chris-zimmermanWe’re talking with Chris Zimmerman today from 12-1. Zimmerman is stepping down after 17 years on the Arlington County Board to work for Smart Growth America.

Update: The chat has ended. Here is the transcript, edited only for formatting, to correct typos and punctuation, and to insert paragraph breaks.

Michael Perkins: Hi and welcome to our Greater Greater Washington live chat. We have with us today as our guest Chris Zimmerman, an Arlington County Board member for the past 18 years. Mr. Zimmerman will be retiring from the board within the next couple weeks to work for Smart Growth America. Thanks for joining us today, Chris.

Chris Zimmerman: Glad to be here (virtually speaking).

Michael Perkins: just a note to anyone joining us today, you can submit a question for the chat by typing /msg perkinsms and then your question. I’ll pick some to include. Chris, let’s start out with Arlington and your experience on the board. How has Arlington changed in nearly two decades?

Chris Zimmerman: Well obviously the vision for Arlington as a TOD-based community has blossomed into reality; in the 90s it was still more of a plan, something hoped for. Beyond the growth of the R-B corridor, we’ve also extended the vision of a walkable, transit-oriented community to non-Metrorail places.

Michael Perkins: In the 90s Arlington was one of the first communities to try some smart growth principles. What was the reaction at the time?

Chris Zimmerman: That has resulted in transit service being extended county-wide (ART), sidewalk improvements, bike facilities throughout the County, etc. In the 90s we didn’t have the smart growth vocabulary, so it was a little less cohesive as a shared vision. Most people supported the idea of transit, but there was less consensus on what we wanted to be as a community.

Many people were concerned about traffic in neighborhoods, for instance. That can become an anti-development movement (as happens in many places), or it can be the basis of a movement for greater walkability — pedestrian safety, safe routes to schools, good urban design, etc. We took the latter path.

Michael Perkins: Right now there’s a big debate going on in Arlington about the plan to add streetcars to Columbia Pike/Pentagon City/Crystal City. At least two of the declared board candidates are opposed to streetcar. How will the streetcar plan fare after you leave the board as one of its strongest advocates?

Chris Zimmerman: There has been strong for the streetcar plan consistently since the first approval in 2006. A solid majority in both the Arlington and Fairfax Boards is committed to realizing it. They recognize that completion of the streetcar system is a vital part of our economic and fiscal future.

Michael Perkins: Some of the candidates would prefer an option like enhanced buses, which some people call BRT. How did the county evaluate streetcar against BRT and choose its preferred option?

Chris Zimmerman: The debate over streetcar in Arlington parallels that over every rail project anywhere in America, especially in recent years. Opponents use “BRT” as a tactic, usually not because they want BRT, but because they are interested in stopping a transit project.

Michael Perkins: Part of the problem with BRT is that the concept is not concrete enough to know what you’re getting. In some ways the Pike Ride bus system is very close to the best BRT we could have on the pike.

Chris Zimmerman: BRT is an important component in an overall strategy for regional mobility. It is not a substitute for streetcar in an application to the kind of corridor we are working with. Most significant to the decision with Columbia Pike, however, was simply that we realized we did not have a BRT option. We could add more buses, but that isn’t BRT.

As you say, folks aren’t necessarily sure what BRT means. That makes it easy to make up false comparisons in which there is a “far cheaper alternative”, which isn’t really an alternative at all, and wouldn’t bring the benefits we’re seeking.

Michael Perkins: A question from Canaan: “A lot of people criticize the Columbia Pike streetcar because it won’t have dedicated lanes. But Mr. Tejada pointed out that is because VDOT won’t allow a lane to be taken away from cars. What made you decide the project was worth it anyway, and if VDOT changed their mind would that mean the board would likely support a new design even if it meant some sort of delay?”

And a side note, is the decision to have a dedicated lane something VDOT could revisit with the county at a later time?

Chris Zimmerman: A dedicated lane for transit is always to be desired. However, when the analysis was done it was found that there would be relatively little travel-time benefit. This is because the east-west flow on Columbia Pike is actually quite good. And of course, the distances are not great. So, a dedicated lane was found not to be essential to achieving high quality transit service.

On the other hand, the quality of the service (particularly in terms of rider experience) can be greatly enhanced with street-running rail. And, yes, at some point in the future the state can decide it wants to convert car lanes to transit lanes.

Michael Perkins: A question emailed in from Rick Rybeck: “What do you think about the use of ‘value capture’ to fund transit and about its ability to promote more compact and affordable development?” I know this is something the County has done under your leadership in the Crystal City area.

Chris Zimmerman: I think value capture will likely be key to significant transit improvements and TOD in the US in coming years. This is of course a large component of our plan for streetcar in Arlington. The Crystal City plan adopted in 2010 included creation of a TIF for the purpose of funding transportation improvements, most especially the streetcar. We have had that in place for several years now, and it can fund most of the cost of the Crystal City-Pentagon City-Potomac Yards portion of the line.

Michael Perkins: A question from David Alpert: “There seems to be a very loud contingent of people stridently opposed to the transit and smart growth vision that Arlington has held to for so long. Is that new, or just more visible because of social media like Twitter? Is it because now it’s moving into new areas like Columbia Pike, versus building out R-B and CC-PY?”

Chris Zimmerman: I think that today there is a loud contingent of strident people opposed to all kinds of things, everywhere. The Internet is wonderful in many ways. One of the ways is the ability to create virtual communities, to connect people who would never have been in contact with each other. It is also a megaphone, that amplifies voices of a few (often a good thing).

These qualities have a profound impact on public discourse, however, and I don’t think we have entirely worked out (as a society) how to process all of it. Among its impacts is the “nationalizing” of all discussion, so that trends that are running in a larger political conversation (state, national) are quickly transformed into local memes. This makes for a very robust discussion at the local level, which can be a very good thing, but it can also be distorting, giving a funhouse mirror look to policy dialogue.

Michael Perkins: Some cities around the country are just starting to look at Smart Growth/Transit oriented development. What advice do you have for these cities? What are the low-hanging fruits that are good “first steps” to take?

Chris Zimmerman: First thing is to assess what assets you already have in place. A grid of streets? A good Main Street? Legacy buildings? Etc. Your greatest returns will come from using these as anchors. Remember that the key objective in any such development pattern — whether in a major metropolis or a small village — is proximity. The value of small spaces is the key. People tend not to realize just how much can be accomplished with very little real estate.

If you’re starting with nothing, get one or two good blocks done. If you’ve got one or two good blocks, build on to them. After that, you can talk about how much you want to invest in transit and other infrastructure. But the focus has to be on creating great places, places people want to be in, and connecting them to everyone.

Michael Perkins: You’re leaving the board after nearly 20 years. How do you think working for a national organization will change how you can advocate for Smart Growth compared to being an elected official?

Chris Zimmerman: As an elected official I’ve had the opportunity to work very intensively on one community — my own — and have an impact on how it has developed. I’m very excited for the opportunity to help with this work on a wide variety of communities, all across the country.

Some are similar to Arlington, or to where Arlington was 20 or 30 years ago; others are very different, in size, demographics, economy, etc. But all have challenges in common, and for all there are basics that can improve the quality of life, the state of the environment, and their economic and fiscal health.

I’ve believed for a very long time that the issues of how we build our communities, how we create the places in which we live, work, and play — how we use the scarce resource of land — has a profound impact across a great range of issues, environmental, social, and economic. So, I think I’m very fortunate to be able to work with people who are trying to make a difference with these policies all over America.

Michael Perkins: We have about 10 minutes left in the chat. If you’re listening in you can send a question in by typing /msg perkinsms and your question. I may not get to them all.

Michael Perkins: I’m going to shift to Metro. The original Metro system was built using money that was shifted from a large highway system that the region largely didn’t need and didn’t want. The original Metro system is now running into capacity constraints, especially on the orange line.

How are we going to be able to afford upgrades to the core capacity of the system? I see a lot of plans on what capacity upgrades we could make, but I don’t see something out there that signifies the $5-10B we are likely going to need to start.

Chris Zimmerman: That’s really a question of political will. The original system (actually only partly funded by shifting money from highways) represented an enormous fiscal commitment from all levels of government. In real terms, the funding needed now is far smaller relatively to our fiscal capacity. The difference now is almost entirely in attitude. We’ve made it hard to raise money for anything government does. But if we want to have a first-class transportation system, it is entirely within our means to do so.

Michael Perkins: In your organizational statement you mentioned that we seemed to be “gripped by a ‘can’t do’ mentality.” How do we overcome that?

Chris Zimmerman: The “we” I was referring to was the nation; so, unfortunately, this is a problem of politics. For the most part, people here in the National Capital Region have not been consumed by this malaise. Recent “controversies” however, illustrate how this mentality is being imposed on our policy dialogue. Even in places like Arlington.

But we don’t have to succumb to it. We have the means to accomplish what we need to do. And my sense is that people — the majority — are ahead of leaders in being willing to move forward. So, advocacy is really important.

Michael Perkins: And with that I think we are done. Thank you very much for joining us.

Chris Zimmerman: Thank you.

Michael Perkins: Thanks to everyone for submitting questions and for listening in.

After 18 years in office, Chris Zimmerman will step down from the Arlington County Board in February. Next Thursday at noon, join him for a live, moderated conversation about his accomplishments in Arlington, where the county’s headed, and his future role at Smart Growth America.

Zimmerman has been a defining leader in transportation and smart growth in our region, serving on the boards for VRE, WMATA, and the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. He’s departing at a crucial moment for Arlington as it moves forward with streetcar projects along Columbia Pike and in Crystal City.

We’ll conduct the chat via Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. If you’re already familiar with IRC, join us at irc.snoonet.org, channel #ggwdiscuss. If you don’t have a client, you can use the web client by clicking here and picking a username.

Where do motorcycles fit in a city? Should we promote them more, because they take up less space and use less gas? Or should we discourage them because they’re noisy and dangerous?

This past July, I finally gave in and took the motorcycle safety course, bought the gear (helmet, full textile suit, gloves, boots), got my license, and bought a 1983 Honda Shadow 500. In good weather, I trade in my Orange Line commute from East Falls Church to Eastern Market for a 12-mile ride along I-66, Independence Avenue, and the Southeast-Southwest Freeway.

As I’ve ridden the motorcycle more and more, I’ve thought about how this is both a good choice and a bad choice for society and our region, and wondered whether motorcycle use should be encouraged more, discouraged more, or we’re doing it about right.

Motorcycles can be more space, energy-efficient

Motorcycling has its benefits. I can use the HOV lanes on I-66. My work provides motorcycle parking in otherwise unusable corners of the parking garage, so I usually save about 20 minutes compared to Metro. We’re a one-car household, so it also allows me to go to meetings or events and not leave the rest of the family without a car.

I can also do this while getting about 58 miles per gallon, about as good as any hybrid car. Meanwhile, motorcycles produce fewer CO2 emissions and consume fewer materials in manufacturing. And they require much less parking than a car. I can generally find spaces to park that a car wouldn’t be able to fit in, and some lots and garages have special motorcycle spaces that would otherwise be unusable.

But motorcycles have drawbacks as well. Like many motorcycles, my bike lacks a catalytic converter, meaning it can create more local pollution. They also create noise pollution, promote gasoline consumption and dependence, and pose an increased safety risk to the operator and others. At least in my case, having a motorcycle has also reduced the amount of transit I take, so Metro doesn’t get that fare revenue. On the other hand, there’s now an extra seat available on the Orange Line.

Society promotes motorcycles by allowing single riders to use the HOV lanes. This probably helps reduce fuel consumption and local CO2 emissions. I don’t know of much that society does to actively discourage motorcycle use, other than promoting an overall sense that they’re extremely dangerous.

Are there ways to encourage motorcycling?

Something our region could consider is allowing lane-splitting, similar to what they allow in California or most countries in Europe. The California Highway Patrol has guidelines for when splitting lanes is appropriate, and don’t allow dangerous weaving in between cars at speed.

It would reduce the risk of a rear-end collision if I were allowed to ride at a moderate pace between lanes of stopped cars, rather than inching along in between someone’s rear bumper and another’s front. This may even reduce congestion, because the motorcycle wouldn’t be using up a whole lane.

Another thing would be to have clearer parking regulations for motorcycles. There have been several times where I’ve seen a parking space that I could physically fit in without blocking traffic of any kind (vehicle or pedestrian), but I would be concerned about getting a ticket.

One example is the small triangles of pavement between on-street parking spaces and curb bumpouts. These are becoming much more common, but I often see “no parking” signs blocking off the corners. I could fit there, but I’d rather not risk a ticket. Why not just leave the no parking signs out, and ticket people if they block the travel lanes?

Motorcycles share some of the characteristics of cars. It’s not an issue for motorcyclists to “keep up” with traffic. However, they share some characteristics with bicycles, like the “sorry, I didn’t see you!” problem, when motorists turn or swerve into motorcycles without looking. And distracted drivers can cause a collision that would only cause a fender-bender with another car, but could be life-threatening for a cyclist or motorcyclist.

Overall, I think we’ve got the balance just about right. We probably don’t need to promote motorcycles any more, but we could do a couple of things to reduce frustration and keep motorcycles out of the way.

A WMATA spokesperson told DCist that “The point of the ad is to get people talking about Metro’s massive rebuilding effort by juxtaposing technical facts with a variety of light responses in conversation between friends.”

The ad certainly has people talking, but not for the reasons Metro intended.

Arlington may consider instituting a fee for developers who provide less than the “standard” amount of parking in office buildings. The money could be used to pay for improvements in the surrounding area, particularly ones that encourage using alternatives to driving.

At an Arlington Transportation Commission meeting last Monday, staff presented the results of the county’s Commercial Parking Working Group, charged with finding a fair and transparent method for developers to compensate the community for the external costs of building less parking.

Their solution: a three-tier fee for developers that provide less than the “standard” amount of parking for an office building. The minimum parking requirement is about one space per 600 square feet for most projects, and less in Rosslyn, Crystal City, and Pentagon City. Normally, developers only have to comply with standard site plan requirements, like working with the county to provide transportation demand management (TDM) services to the building’s users.

Under the proposal, a developer that wanted to provide less than the standard amount would have to pay a fee. County planners would use the guidelines to decide the amount of the contribution when the developer submits their site plan for consideration. The guideline amounts would adjust periodically according to inflation. The money would be specifically earmarked for improvements in the building’s immediate area or would pay for TDM services for the building’s tenants.

The first two tiers are fairly inexpensive, ranging between $7,000 and $10,000 per space, since it’s relatively easy to convince a small number of people to switch from cars to other transportation modes.

As developers build less parking, it may be harder to convince committed drivers to reconsider, and the county may have to construct or otherwise provide parking instead of less expensive commuter services. At the top tier, a developer would be required to pay $40,000 per space not built, which is equivalent to the average cost of providing a parking space underground.

This is a good solution for Arlington. We have a robust system of review for major projects, and the proposal lays out in concrete terms what developers can expect if they want to reduce the amount of parking in their projects.

Although the payment amounts are lower than I would like to see, they are linked to analysis concerning the costs of convincing people not to drive to work. I would rather have seen payments linked to the cost of construction for parking spaces, which could have more closely reflected the benefit to the builder for reducing the number of required spaces.

Hopefully, Arlington embraces a similar result for residential buildings. Apartment and condominium developers similarly ask to build fewer parking spaces, but there are not concrete guidelines for what community benefits we should expect in return.

Many major transit systems offer a “service guarantee” policy where riders get a free trip or a refund if there are severe delays, but WMATA’s policy is much more limited. After repeated rail delays, some riders are demanding a better deal.

Rockville resident Dave Tucker recently complained to WMATA on Twitter after his train was evacuated due to brake problems. Officials replied that they were “prohibited from providing fare adjustments for delays caused by mechanical problems and other conditions beyond [Metro’s] control,” Tucker reported, but as a “gesture of goodwill,” they gave Tucker two free one-way passes.

WMATA’s current “service guarantee” policy falls short of best practices in other cities. During major delays, you can leave from your original station without paying, but only if station agents allow it. Metro should make its policy more flexible.

If you get trapped behind a stalled train for an hour halfway to your destination, you have two options. One is to stay put and hope you get there, all while paying full price. The other is to try and return to your origin, maybe be able to exit without paying, and then try to get to your destination another way.

Plus, are mechanical problems really beyond Metro’s control? Only if they’re caused by “acts of God” or by customers jamming the doors. More often than not, mechanical failure happens because of insufficient maintenance or sloppy inspections. Those are WMATA’s fault, and when they result in delays, customers deserve refunds.

Other major transit systems offer customers a free future trip if they are delayed for a certain length of time. Philadelphia’s SEPTA offers a free trip to riders after 50 minutes, while Boston’s MBTA will give you a free trip after just 30 minutes.

Transport for London’s service guarantee program goes even further, giving refunds to any customer after a 15-minute delay. Arlington resident Samer Farha explained his experiences during a recent trip to London, where he used Oyster card, their equivalent of SmarTrip. According to Farha, when his trip was delayed, Transport for London (TfL) emailed him to apologize. TfL told him the refund would go back on his card the next time he entered the system. Farha could even log in to TfL’s website and choose which station he wanted to credit to go to.

With Metro’s current state of repair, a 15-minute window might be a little aggressive, but the agency could at least allow customers to request a refund for delays of 30 minutes or more.

Metro should also let customers leave from the station they entered from, without having to wait for officials to declare a “major delay,” as long as they leave within 30 minutes. If you bail out because the train is taking too long, what does it matter how long the delay is? You haven’t used Metro for transportation, and shouldn’t pay anything.

If WMATA has to refund customers when it’s at fault, that could give employees and officials alike an incentive to start making the system more reliable. The number of customer refunds could become a performance metric which goes in reports to the WMATA board.

Metro promises its riders a safe, reliable means of transportation, though it doesn’t always deliver. A service guarantee would acknowledge that they make mistakes and respect their customers’ time and money.

Starting Monday, Metrorail riders can purchase a “short trip” pass online or at a fare machine and apply it to their SmarTrip cards. It’s a big improvement for Metro customers that commute regularly and use Metro on the weekends or for additional trips in the evenings.

The pass costs $35 and is good for one week. It covers all off-peak trips and the first $3.50 of peak trips. If you take a trip costing more than $3.50, the difference comes out of the stored value on your SmarTrip.

Metro already offers SmarTrip passes that give rail riders unlimited rides of any length. Those cost $15 for one day, $57.50 for a week and $230 for 28 days. Those are useful for riders taking longer, more expensive trips. But those who only ride a few stops won’t find that pass worthwhile. These new “short trip” passes are much cheaper because they don’t cover long trips that riders may not need.

“Short trip” passes were previously available only as a paper farecard. If you took a trip of more than $3.50, you would have to use the Exitfare machine to pay the exact fare when leaving. Putting the pass on a SmarTrip card is much more convenient for riders who take the occasional longer trip, because the faregates can automatically calculate and deduct the extra fare.

Next, consider discounts and even passes for even shorter trips

You can also subscribe online to have the pass automatically renew when the old one is about to expire. For some riders, this is a good option. But since the pass costs the equivalent of 10 rides, it’s not such a good deal that you’d want to set it and forget it, which could mean you’d end up buying one even on weeks with work holidays or vacation. I’d like to see a monthly pass with a discount, so that more riders would find it worthwhile to just buy passes automatically even around holidays.

Now that Metro’s figured out how to implement a pass where people pay and get trips under a certain amount free, they could even try offering passes with a threshold below $3.50. For example, a pass that costs $100 per month and allows all trips under $2.50 each way for free might be very popular among riders that live in DC.

Give credit for bus transfers

One downside to the “short trip” pass is that it doesn’t discount transfers between bus and rail. WMATA representatives have previously said that allowing transfer discounts to pass holders would be like giving discounts on top of discounts.

However, the transfer discount used to be available for pass holders when WMATA used paper transfer slips. When the WMATA Board approved replacing them with SmarTrip tracking, there was no discussion about eliminating the discount as well.

The discount isn’t really a “discount,” anyway. It’s a recognition that a trip that uses bus and rail is really one trip on two modes, and the fare probably shouldn’t be the same as two totally separate trips. You don’t pay double the rail fare if you transfer between rail lines. In many cities, like New York, a bus plus rail trip costs the same as just one trip alone.

WMATA should restore the transfer discounts for all pass holders, and give riders with a rail pass the same reduced fare on the bus as any rider coming from a rail trip. Similarly, all riders should get the same fare when they transfer from bus to rail, whether or not they have a Metrobus pass.

All in all, “short trip” passes on SmarTrip are a great option, and I expect to subscribe to them in the future.

Nearly every Metro fare machine has a paper sign on it: “Using a paper farecard? Add $1 to every trip.” Yet even with this reminder, some riders get stuck at the faregates, wondering why Metro won’t let them leave.

Photo by Tim Krepp.

Most people riding Metro use SmarTrip, and that’s great. But the ones that are more likely to need extra help with a fare table are the infrequent customers that use a paper farecard.

It makes no sense to list SmarTrip prices on the fare table and then ask people to add $1. Riders shouldn’t need to do math to figure out how much to put on their farecards. We want to make purchasing a farecard as easy as possible, while not necessarily offering them the best deal possible.

The simplest solution would be to list the paper farecard prices on the tables, and then have notes that SmarTrip riders get a discount. Even if these riders don’t notice, they’ll just end up with extra money on their cards, which they can use later.

An even better approach would be to eliminate the $1 surcharge, and instead always charge peak fares for people using paper farecards. The fare machines would simply list the peak fare for each destination, with a note that SmarTrip customers get discounts during off-peak, discounted transfers to and from trips on buses, protected fare balances (with registration) and a guarantee that they won’t be trapped in the system if their balance goes too low.

All paper farecard customers would have to do is look up their destination, and make sure their farecard had the corresponding amount. No math, no timetables, no figuring out whether it’s currently peak or off-peak.

WMATA spokesperson Dan Stessel said the agency is aware of the confusion and complaints about these signs, and is “considering” making changes to the posted fare tables and signs.

Many other reporters, people on Twitter, and residents generally have clearly stated in response what should of course go without saying, that such personal attacks are beyond the pale.

Some may get the sense that there is personal animosity between Townsend and the team here at Greater Greater Washington. At least on our end, nothing could be further from the truth. We simply disagree with many of his policy positions and his incendiary rhetoric.

Spirited argument is important in public policy, but it should not cross into insults. When it does, that has a chilling effect on open discourse. Fostering an inclusive conversation about the shape of our region is the purpose of this site, but discourse must be civil to be truly open. That’s why our comment policy here on Greater Greater Washington prohibits invective like this. In our articles, we try hard to avoid crossing this line, and are disappointed when we or others do, intentionally or inadvertently.

The “war on cars” frame unnecessarily pits drivers against cyclists and pedestrians instead of working together for positive solutions. The City Paper article, by Aaron Wiener, does a good job of debunking that, and is worth reading for much more than the insults it quotes.

When pressed, Townsend told Wiener he wants to back away from the “war on cars.”

“I regret the rhetoric sometimes,” he says. “Because I think that when you use that type of language, it shuts down communication with people who disagree.”

We hope Townsend, his colleagues, and their superiors also regret the things he said about David and Greater Greater Washington. We look forward to the day when AAA ceases using antagonistic language and begins working toward safety, mobility, and harmony among all road users.

In the meantime, residents do have a choice when purchasing towing, insurance, and travel discounts. Better World Club is one company that offers many of the same benefits as AAA, but without the disdain.

A Metro rider, Barbara, wrote in to Unsuck DC Metro about a problem where she added funds to SmarTrip online but then still couldn’t go through a faregate. What’s going on is one of the unfortunate consequences of the 1990s-era faregate systems WMATA is still using.

I had added funds online on March 4. I didn’t use my card before March 18, and when I did, I had to realize that there was still only 20 cents on my card, and the $50 I had added at the beginning of the month were nowhere to be seen. …

I couldn’t use them for riding because the funds wouldn’t load, and I couldn’t even go through the turnstile with them. So, what I did was use my credit card to add $20 to my card (I didn’t have any cash on me), entered Foggy Bottom, exited at Ballston and: voilà! there were $68 on my card all of a sudden.

This is obviously frustrating to infrequent riders who load up funds ahead of time for when they ride, or use automatic loading to ensure their card is never low on funds. But the automatic or remote loading may not work.

This happens because of the way the (fairly outdated) SmarTrip system works. When you add funds to your SmarTrip card online or automatically, the funds don’t appear in your Smartrip account immediately because your balance is actually stored encrypted on the card rather than on a computer.

Adding funds online sends an instruction to the SmarTrip system to watch for your card. The next time a faregate or bus farebox reads your card, it will have information about what you added, and will load the funds onto your card.

The load instructions get copied to faregates and bus fareboxes throughout the system, but because these machines are not in constant communication (like bus fareboxes), it may take several days for the instructions to reach a farebox you use.

But Barbara waited more than a few days. What happened? She wrote:

I called SmarTrip, and they didn’t have a plausible explanation: All I learned was that this could happen “with infrequent use of the card.” What the heck does that mean? It shouldn’t matter how frequently I use the card — it’s my money on there, it’s just not in my bank any longer, it’s on their card!

Here’s what’s going on. The faregates have their list of SmarTrip cards that are waiting for new funds already loaded online. Unfortunately, the outdated faregates have limited computer memory (that fact restricted peak-of-the-peak, for example). They can only store so many load instructions.

Spokesperson Dan Stessel said:

Each target [the SmarTrip computer system in the faregates] can hold a maximum of 85,000 auto loads. When that number is exceeded, the system has to localize, meaning the system will send your auto load purchase to every station you’ve used in the past month.

Furthermore, based on the SmarTrip customer service response, it sounds like if you load online but then don’t use the system soon after, newer load instructions may crowd yours out.

Either the Ballston gate had the instruction and Foggy Bottom did not. (Barbara said that she lives in Arlington, so Ballston is probably the station she uses most.) Alternately, once Barbara loaded her card at a machine and then entered the rail system, the central system retransmitted her load instruction to the faregates. Then when she exited, the gate at Ballston knew to add her funds.

This whole mechanism of getting the load instruction onto the faregates ahead of time is fairly messy. It would be better if, when you went onto the system, the faregate could just check your balance with a central server, but the faregates don’t have a high-speed, always-on connection to a central server to accomplish this.

WMATA is studying new fare payment systems. Any new system ought to fix this irritating problem, but it may be quite some time before a new system actually comes on line.

Meanwhile, it might make sense for more infrequent riders to use the vending machines, especially if they let their cards get very low.

For years, WMATA has been proposing budgets with ever-increasing rail service. The approved FY 2013 budget has almost 8.4 million miles of scheduled railcar service, almost double the amount scheduled in FY 1997.

So why does it feel like the amount of service is actually declining? Because it is. According to figures reported to the Federal Transit Administration National Transit Database, Metro’s rail service hit a peak in 2009 and has decreased almost 6% since:

It’s actually part of a long pattern where Metro would propose a higher level of service to the Board of Directors, but then the actual amount of service delivered is substantially lower. For FY 2002 until FY 2008, Metro would determine the actual amount and update the chart in the following year’s budget. Each year, the amount of promised service would look like a big increase compared to previous years’.

In 2009, this practice stopped. Metro now no longer updates the budget document with the actual amount of service. Metro still reports the actual amount of service to the NTD, and the shortfall has grown to 18% of the proposed service level as of 2011.

Recently, The Washington Examiner reported a drop in ridership of about 5% compared to last year. In my opinion, the combination of decreasing ridership, decreasing service and increasing fares carries the specter of a transit “death spiral,” where service cuts reduce revenue, forcing greater fare increases, which in turn drives more people away from transit.

Note: I reached out to WMATA for comment earlier this week and initially planned to give them until Monday to respond. However, I also told the blogger behind Unsuck DC Metro about this issue so we could collaborate, with what I thought was an agreement not to publish this information yet; Unsuck went live this morning with a post based on the information I gave, so we are publishing now. If we get a response from WMATA, we will update this post.

Yesterday, WMATA announced in a press release that its expenses were lower than predicted during the 2012 fiscal year, which ended in June. The transit system took in $2 million less in fare revenue than it expected, but spent $30 million less.

The savings comes in part from lower fuel and energy costs and an audit of which Metro workers’ dependents were eligible for health care. The agency also spent less on MetroAccess after recent moves cut down on how many people use paratransit service.

WMATA proposes applying this surplus, plus other reductions in costs, to reduce the amount of funding it will need from jurisdictions. The last estimate put its funding need for FY2014 (July 2013-June 2014) at $76 million, and along with other savings and expected funding grants, this reduces it to $27 million.

Nearly every year, labor and benefits costs increase based on WMATA’s labor agreements, determined by arbitration, and some other costs like fuel and energy have also often increased. Meanwhile, fares don’t automatically increase, and area jurisdictions don’t automatically promise to put in more money each year to cover rising costs.

This creates a small projected deficit in the first public iterations of the WMATA budget. Most years, the jurisdictions have agreed to increase the amount of operating funding they provide, but that is always in doubt until they pass their final budgets in the spring, and in some years executives of Virginia, Maryland or DC have threatened to withhold funding.

The current WMATA board policy states that fare increases should only occur every other year, though severe budgets in the recession has led to fare increases even in some consecutive years. A particularly bad shortfall led to a mid-year increase in 2010 to close an unexpected drop in revenue. If WMATA does not get enough funding from jurisdictions and decides not to increase fares, then it must consider service cuts in order to balance the budget.

This surplus could also complicate WMATA’s position in negotiations with its largest labor union. While WMATA argues that it cannot afford to increase wages and be the sole contributor to pension funds, it is also announcing a surplus over the previous year of operation. Arbitrators, not WMATA or local governments, set wage and benefits levels.

The arbitration panel could decide that Metro’s financial position is not that bad, and may reject the idea of holding wages constant or requiring Local 689 workers to contribute to pension funds. These costs would increase the projected shortfall, and would require additional funds from governments or riders to keep the budget balanced.

Calling this a “surplus” may mislead some riders. It does not mean that Metro “made money” in 2012, but rather that its budget projections were gloomier than reality. Similarly, DC Public Schools might conceivably spend less one year than projected and end up with a surplus, but it’s still getting most of its money from the District’s general budget, not turning a profit from education.

It does, however, seem that WMATA could have told its board or the public about this a little earlier. Kytja Weir writes in the Examiner,

Metro had known it probably would have a surplus before finalizing the fare increases and higher subsidies. But Chief Financial Officer Carol Dillon Kissal said that she couldn’t use the savings then because it was only a forecast. …

Metro typically presents a stark forecast with a budget hole that needs to be filled with increased fares, service cuts or higher subsidies. But it was the second year in a row that Metro ended the year with a multi-million dollar surplus. In a report released last week, the agency said it had a $46 million surplus in the previous fiscal year.

It might have been possible to raise fares less. On the other hand, budgeting too conservatively just leads to a surplus, while budgeting too aggressively can force a sudden mid-year service cut or fare hike to fill an unexpected hole. In some past years, board members did more to pressure the agency to estimate higher. Sometimes that worked out, and riders saved money; other times, it led to last-minute crises.

This is only the beginning of WMATA’s budget season. Over the next 7-8 months, WMATA staff, the board, and the public will discuss budget. Staff will first present the board with its forecasts for FY2014 (July 2013-June 2014), and CEO Richard Sarles will propose a budget in January. After that, the board will decide on whether to send any fare increase or service cut proposals to the public for comment around March, and in May or June will approve the budget for the coming year.

WMATA spokespeople did not yet return a call for comment from late this morning.

WMATA’s board put off approving a headway policy in July, amid criticism that it set too low a bar. The board will take up the issue this fall. It’s good for Metro to define a specific headway policy, as many other transit systems do, but that policy needs to be clearer so that elected officials, taxpayers and riders know for sure what level of service their money buys.

Today, Metro’s only headway policy is in the annual budget. The budget lays out the normal headway for each train line during rush and mid-day non-rush. The board approves the budget in June, and the staff writes the normal service schedule based on it. For rush periods, the minimum headway is not usually enough for the number of riders, so Metro adds trains and adjusts to meet the demand.

However, the annual budget doesn’t specify the policy for headway before the peak period starts. It doesn’t define when in the day the peak period headway applies. It also doesn’t mandate any headway in the evening and at night. For example, Metro currently schedules trains every 20 minutes at night, but the budget only lists a maximum 15-minute headway.

Also, the headway policy is not part of the draft budget the board circulates to riders for public comment. It’s only after the final budget is published, long after approval, that people can see Metro’s policy.

Metro is trying to fix this by writing down a headway policy for board approval. Like the budget, though, the first version of the policy did not have enough detail. Metro staff proposed a maximum headway of 15 minutes during rush, and 30 minutes otherwise. They said verbally that the policy would apply to service during scheduled track maintenance, but there was nothing in the draft that made this explicit.

Some staff tell me that the suggested 15-minute headway during rush hour could have been anticipating service changes when the Silver Line opens. We don’t really know, and Metro hasn’t specified their plan for Silver Line service. If Metro plans to only provide service every 15 minutes during rush to any part of the system after that, riders and policymakers should have that discussion more openly than as part of a vague maximum headway policy.

What would make a better headway policy?

A good headway policy would have two key elements.

First, it would specifically delineate the minimum headway for regularly scheduled service, for all times of day and all lines. That way, board members and the public will know what level of service we are paying for. The annual budget should incorporate the headway policy, with a draft available by March when the budget comes up for debate.

Second, it would establish a minimum headway policy for planned maintenance. Metro won’t be planning maintenance during peak periods, so a peak headway policy doesn’t make sense here. The policy would be useful in deciding what kind of shutdown to use for track maintenance. If single tracking causes the planned maintenance headway to be too long, it would be better to completely shut down the segment and use shuttle buses.

With these elements in the policy, everyone can have clear expectations, and the General Manager can handle the details of how and when to provide regular service and scheduled maintenance within well-defined parameters.